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Open to students of Physical Conversation who were 5th form in 2718 or any 5th form if you really want to participate for fun.

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Nauleth Siordanti
Posts: 189
Joined: Sun Apr 01, 2018 12:19 am
Topics: 22
Race: Galdor
Location: Brunnhold, Anaxas
: Magus in the Making
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Sat Jun 08, 2019 5:33 pm

35th of Yaris, 2718
FIELD of PRACTICAL APPLICATION | MORNING CLASS

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News of the Riots in Vienda had spread like wildfire through Brunnhold, the ripples of fear and panic at the chaos and devastation in the glorious Anaxi capitol of Vienda reaching even the youngest of students, many of them concerned for their parents who were most likely the safest of all people during the fires and fighting that consumed part of the Dives and had required the Anaxi Armed Forces to eventually snuff out.

Professor Siordanti had experienced a huge influx of young people in the small, closet-like confines of his office in the Physical Conversation wing of campus, the windowless room like a little brick oven when packed with nervous, crying students asking his emotional advice on whether they should be studying or going home to see their families in the aftermath. Nauleth didn't dare move a quiz, didn't alter his lesson plans, and hardly seemed to bat an eye in front of his educational responsibilities, young as they were, though on the inside, he'd experienced a bit of concern for his own family, aware that Hadrian Siordanti was an Incumbent.

Not that anyone had reached out to him to let him know they were, indeed, safe and sound after how Roalis had gone.

He could have swallowed his own stubborn pride and contacted his mother or his sister or even his brother, but he refused to cave, still so very angry that his father had arranged his marriage to Ambassador Athrym Bruthgrave of Gior even before he'd met her, even before he'd awkwardly confessed his love to her in their mutual ignorance of the political and economic maneuvering on the part of their powerful families.

Did it really matter?

The eldest Siordanti felt as though it did and he couldn't clocking let it go.

Ruminating on how twisted and strange the plans of the Circle sometimes appeared to be at first, he had chosen this blistery, windless, but thankfully cloudy day near the end of Yaris to take his students out on the Field of Practical Application for spellwork in class. The dry season was beginning to slowly cool off, the hottest days of the year probably past them all, but the chilly temperatures of Vortas still far away. His fifth form Physical Conversation class followed him from their room, young, uniformed galdori chattering amongst themselves as they walked briskly across campus toward the withered, scorched grass and various lingering plots that marked the Field, also infamously known as the Lawn.

Nauleth, of course, had spent so much of his student life and also post-graduate life outside on the Lawn, dueling and studying. He'd even almost died on the same Lawn when he was barely older than today's students, and the memory of that incident always whispered his failures into the back of his mind every time his feet crunched on dry, withered plantlife and cracked earth.

Or, at least, it used to.

Filled with more purpose and confidence than he had been in months, if not years, the Junior Professor strode his young charges until he found a sufficiently pleasing section of mostly still green grass. A hint of sun danced through the clouds, but dry heat already had him sweating beneath the long almost robe-like coat that marked his position as an educator here on Brunnhold's redwalled campus. Shifting the slightly oversized classroom equipment satchel he wore forward so he could open it while he raised his free hand to signal for his students to stop, he paused and let everyone settle,

"So, this whole month we've been studying physical mechanics in order to better understand using Physical Conversation to influence the laws of motion. Today, class, you're going to be creating some simple exercises to demonstrate your understanding."

Opening the bag, Nauleth began removing small spheres, polished and smooth, made of a light metallic alloy and each carefully crafted to all weigh exactly the same. They weren't heavy at all, but he'd carried enough for each student to have two with a few extras just in case. Various items to help create a plot or to create simple machines to assist in position or velocity of the spheres were also laid out at his feet in order to give all of the young galdori plenty of options,

"I'd like everyone to pair off and find a spot on the Lawn. I have here—" Fumbling into the inner pocket of his coat while he silently counted his students today and noticed one was missing, leaving him an odd number with the flicker of a scowl where the right side turned downward before the left as always, he pulled out small slips of paper and waved them for emphasis.

Surely his class was used to the very slight delay in the once-damaged side of his face, but Nauleth was equally used to people noticing at the most inopportune of moments,

"—each a problem for you to solve using Physical Conversation and an alteration of a mechanical law. Now, go on, pair off. One of you will either have to be a group of three or I suppose I can play student for a day." He offered with a chuckle, gold-rimmed eyes watching as a bunch of fifteen year olds sorted themselves loudly.
This isn't Brunnhold anymore, ersehat, and you're not going home.

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Madeleine Gosselin
Posts: 134
Joined: Sun May 26, 2019 3:54 pm
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Sun Jun 09, 2019 10:25 am

Morning Class, 35th Yaris, 2718
Field of Practical Application
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Itwas hard to focus on class. It had been, ever since she first heard about the riots. Madeleine had been so afraid, panicked and upset. There were so many different rumors; people were saying that the entire city of Vienda was burning, that crowds of filthy humans had charged the streets in Uptown and pulled sleeping galdori from their beds, drunk on violence and desperately ungrateful. Others had insisted that it was mostly the Dives, and they deserved to burn anyway; the city would be better if they were cleaned out. Madeleine hadn’t known what to believe.

Now that the Anaxas Armed Forces had, finally, done their work and arrested the awful people responsible, Madeleine might have thought she’d feel better. But she didn’t; she still felt sick, and whenever she thought about it, it was the conversation with Angelique that played back in her head.

It had been the second day of the riots. Madeleine had waited in line at the station the clairvoyance professors had set up for hours, desperate to make sure her parents were okay, and she kept waiting, kept going back to the end of the line, because she thought Angelique and Sebastian and Vespasian would also want to know, but – they weren’t there, none of them, and they didn’t come, even though Madeleine waited nearly the whole day. She was sure her parents were fine; it was only that she wanted to check, to talk to them, and she didn’t think they’d like it if Madeleine contacted them, and then Angelique too later, because they were always so busy, both of them, with all sorts of important things.

She had tried Angelique and Sebastian’s rooms before going to the line. She’d tried them the day before too, and she hadn’t been able to find them, either of them, and not Vespasian either. Finally, at the end of the day, Madeleine made her way back to the dormitories, and, a bit desperate, she had tried Angelique’s door again.

“I’m studying!” Her sister had called. “Who is it?”

“It’s Madeleine!” Madeleine could remember how raw and ragged her voice had been. “I – did you hear from mother and father? Are they all right?”

“Of course they’re okay, you stop-clocker.” The door opened, and Angelique looked down her nose at Madeleine. Madeleine wasn’t sure if she had really flinched, but her sister’s voice had been so scornful that it felt like a slap. “Do you think they’re foolish enough to let those plowfeet get them?”

Madeleine had started crying, she was fairly sure. “But – everyone is saying there’s – fire, that people are dying!”

“Oh clock it,” Angelique scoffed. “Fine.” She had shut the door, and come back a moment later, thrusting the family seer stone into Madeleine’s hands. “There. Use this, if you’re so worried,” she rolled her eyes. “They won’t be happy if you bother them.”

Madeleine had clutched the seer stone to her chest and gone back to her room. Her roommate was studying, so Madeleine had done her best to cry as quietly as possible into her pillow, even though it was hard. The seer stone she had set on her desk, and she had left it there for another two days, all the while the tension a hard knot in her chest and belly. Only on the fourth day of the riots had she worked up the courage to send a message. There had been no response, and then a few days later a brief message from her parents not to waste time she should have spent studying. That memory burned too, hot and shameful in a secret place in her heart.

Even now, after word came that thankfully the instigators had been properly hung a few days ago, Madeleine still felt a faint knot of fear and tension in her stomach. She didn’t understand it and she couldn’t unravel it. Some students had gone home, her roommate included, but everyone else seemed to be fine, just fine, as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had changed. Madeleine couldn’t understand that either.

But they had class, and Madeleine had to attend class, so she got up every day and washed her face and dressed in her uniform just like she had done before, like everyone else, as if they could all agree to pretend nothing had changed. Today Professor Siordanti was taking them to the Field of Practical Application, and, despite herself, Madeleine was starting to feel excited. She loved Physical Conversation and she thought Professor Siordanti was absolutely brilliant. She couldn’t imagine it was true what everyone said, that he’d been in a terrible duel and nearly died, but it was true that half his face moved slower than the other half. Madeleine thought it was fascinating, and this class was the first she’d felt really looked forward to since the riots.

“What do you think we’ll do today?” Madeleine asked the classmate next to her, smiling.

“No idea!” The other girl smiled back, just as brightly. “But it’s so nice to have class outside, isn’t it?” She giggled, and Madeleine found herself giggling as well, relaxing a bit.

Madeleine crowded around Professor Siordanti with all the other students, watching curiously as he took tools out of his bag first, then a bunch of small metal spheres. He asked them to pair off, and Madeleine nodded, attentively. She turned to the girl she’d just been talking to, only to find that she’d already drifted off and was giggling with someone else now.

Madeleine paused and looked around. She hadn’t known they would be pairing off, and she hadn’t tried to walk close to anyone she usually studied with. She took a few tentative steps, but the boys on her other side were already paired together, and – she spotted a few of the students she liked, but they were too far away, and it looked like they were already paired up anyway. Madeleine turned in a slow, awkward circle; she didn’t see anyone to pair up with now, and a wave of hot, miserable humiliation flooded her cheeks and the back of her neck, almost visible beneath the thick braid of hair resting on the back of her uniform. She dropped her gaze to the green grass beneath her feet, not sure if she should wait to see if maybe there were some other unpaired students left, or to try to make a group of three. Instead, indecisive and feeling the return of the knot of tension in her stomach, Madeleine stayed still and alone, staring miserably down at her toes.

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Nauleth Siordanti
Posts: 189
Joined: Sun Apr 01, 2018 12:19 am
Topics: 22
Race: Galdor
Location: Brunnhold, Anaxas
: Magus in the Making
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Fri Nov 08, 2019 12:58 pm

35th of Yaris, 2718
FIELD of PRACTICAL APPLICATION | MORNING CLASS

The junior professor watched as his small class of fifth form students dissolved into a moment of chaos as if he'd just tossed a handful of rocks into a calm, shallow pond. Everyone scattered and whispered, and beneath the dark colors of his formal teaching robes, Nauleth was already sweating, both because of the oppressive Yaris heat and because he was a little concerned with just how his young but thoughtful class would fare with such a free form exercise in thought on the laws of the universe and conversation with the mona to bend them. Surely, they could deal with this assignment successfully—galdorkind possessed the best minds in all of Vita, didn't they?

Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that most of his class had already formed their pairs and he noted, more importantly, that the one left over was Miss Gosselin. He sighed, not because he disliked the girl, not because she was anywhere near the bottom of his class, no, but because he did not feel at all like picking a group to add her to, like shifting some social dynamic he had no real ability to properly comprehend.

He might even have felt the slightest hint of empathy, though it was faint, for there'd been plenty of classes in his time, especially after his backlash, that he'd been left standing alone on the Lawn,

"Miss Gosselin, you have the privilege of working with myself this morning. How fortunate for you." Nauleth made sure to speak loudly enough to silence the small talk of his class, feeling all their eyes shift toward him and somewhat aware of at least one or two looks of jealousy. Well, they certainly had made their choices, hadn't they? His smile was not entirely kind, but he hid it well.

The young professor began to set out materials while everyone watched, offering a few to Madeleine and indicating she could finish the work there on the scorched grass of the Lawn, burned not just by the dry season sun but also by countless spells. He then reached into his robes and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, unfolding it to reveal a large diagramYou can see the diagram here. of examples. Laying it out on the ground, he set his satchel on one corner to make sure it stayed in place, not that he expected a breeze, and then waved a hand to invite everyone to take a moment and glance at it for ideas of what was in store for them.

While his students murmured and stared, he produced small slips of hand-cut paper from another pocket, holding them aloft to garner the attention of the children,

"You all seem ready, then. Here, I'm passing out a singular physics problem for each of you to solve. We will be using these metal spheres, which all weigh half a pound each, and each group can use two of them unless otherwise stated on your assignment. You will be first solving the problem with secular physics and then also overcoming the problem entirely with magic. I want you to think about the mechanical laws you are asking the mona to shift and change in your spellwork. Is that clear?"

A few hands shot up and he answered each of their questions in turn, the young Siordanti wiping his freckled brow with the heel of his palm before he set about passing out an assignment to each group.

Offering one to Madeleine, he waited for her to turn it over so they both would see:

Please ask the Professor for additional spheres of varying weight and find the center of gravity of an arrangement of spheres of your choice, first with rods and wire and then using a levitation ley bridge in your spell.
"Ah, that one will be fun." The young Siordanti admitted in genuine enthusiasm, his lopsided smile brief but sincere, left side taking a few moments to curl into the same expression as the right, "Let me just make sure everyone is settled and I can find a few more spheres in my satchel in a moment, Miss Gosselin."

Nauleth stepped away to finish handing out their problems to solve, pausing to answer a few more questions before he returned to his satchel. A pair of students came up to request wedges and small boards. Another came for a pair of pulleys and some twine. Another came for gears. He handed out what was necessary and also watched as some of his students made additional choices on their own from the selection of simple machines and various equipment he'd lugged willingly from their classroom out to the Lawn.

Once the class was all busily solving their assignments, he returned to Madeline with several spheres of various sizes and weights (all of them with a narrow hole through their center like an oversized bead), a couple of rods, and a spool of wire all piled precariously in his hands, pressed against the dark folds of his robes,

"Do you have any questions before we get started? Not that I can give you any answers, of course, but you can certainly use me as a sounding board for your ideas."
Welcome to Brunnhold. Now go home.
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Madeleine Gosselin
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Joined: Sun May 26, 2019 3:54 pm
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Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm

Morning Class, 35th Yaris, 2718
Field of Practical Application
Professor Siordanti said her name, and Madeleine looked up, slowly. She had been busy thinking about trying to find a person to pair up with, and she didn’t remember what he had said about what would happen to someone who didn’t have a pair. A miserable dread stirred in her stomach. He would assign her to a group of two, of people who had wanted to work with each other and not her, and it would be awkward and terrible, Madeleine as already sure.

But he didn’t.

Professor Siordanti said, instead, loudly, that Madeleine would work with him. Her eyes widened, and the middle Gosselin straightened up, and smiled. Oh, she thought, unexpectedly pleased and feeling a little warm. Oh. That was – it was nice. A few other students were looking at her, but nobody seemed to be laughing. And how could they? How fortunate for you, Professor Siordanti had said, and Madeleine smiled a little wider, and lifted her chin, owning her full five feet of height, her shoulders relaxing. Her hands had been gripping the satchel of her book bag, but they relaxed too.

She eased closer to Professor Siordanti, and took the materials he offered, very happy to help. It was nice even to have the opportunity to help. She studied the diagram wide-eyed and curiously, and one of the other girls nudged her in the ribs and whispered ‘lucky!’ with a little glanced at their professor, and Madeleine glanced back at her and grinned, and she didn’t even know where it had come from.

Madeleine took one of the papers that Professor Siordanti offered, and turned it over, eagerly. “Oh!” She said, happy and pleased, reading the description a second time. Find the center of gravity of an arrangement of spheres of her choice, with rods and wires and then a levitation ley bridge. She grinned up at Professor Siordanti again, eyes lingering curiously on the little delay in his smile but then jumping up to his eyes. She nodded, eagerly, and held the paper tightly in both hands.

Madeleine didn’t mind waiting. Professor Siordanti asked, when he came back, if she had any questions. He was cradling a collection of spheres and rods and a spool of wire, and he asked if she had any questions. Madeleine looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Oh!” Questions. "Yes, Professor, a few?" Her voice rose, faintly, but she didn't seem as uncertain as the tone indicated.

Madeleine lowered her eyes back to the diagram, skimming it curiously, and then looked back up at Professor Siordanti. “It should be – should I arrange the spheres along one plane?” Madeleine asked, curiously, thinking of the diagrams thirteen through fifteen on the sheet he had offered. Her eyes skipped down to the twenty-first below, and she looked back at her sheet of paper. He had said center of gravity, when he’d written on the assignment, not center of motion. Both looked terribly interesting, Madeleine though, but of course they were quite different problems.

“May I let the length of the strings vary, or would you prefer that I hold them fixed?” Madeleine looked back up at him, and smiled a little wider, all traces of her earlier dismay utterly gone in her enthusiasm for the subject. It would be more challenging the first way, she thought, because she would need to take both the weight of the different spheres, their distance, and the length of the string into account, but she hoped she could manage it. She wanted, at least, to try, although it would be terribly embarrassing if she couldn’t do the harder version and had to go back to the simpler one.

"Oh," Madeleine blurted out, a third time, looking at the equipment that he was still holding. "Should I - um - " she reached out her much smaller hands for the spheres and wires and rods, tentatively, and held, extended, as if not quite sure whether to actually take them from him.

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Nauleth Siordanti
Posts: 189
Joined: Sun Apr 01, 2018 12:19 am
Topics: 22
Race: Galdor
Location: Brunnhold, Anaxas
: Magus in the Making
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Mon Dec 16, 2019 3:03 pm

35th of Yaris, 2718
FIELD of PRACTICAL APPLICATION | MORNING CLASS

There was only a residual bit of whining and confusion to wade through, Nauleth moving amongst his students and reading their various assignments (although he knew them all already by heart) and clarifying whatever it was that seemed to cause them so much distress. Forced to pull out his notebook from his coat pocket and fumble for both his thin, wireframe glassees as well as a godsbedamned pencil with one pair of young galdori he was afraid would dissolve into tears at any moment, he deftly sketched a few directions for them to travel, resisting the urge to frown as they continued to ask questions. Finally, ripping the paper from the spine and gently handing it to the taller of two young women, Miss Elainnet, he skillfully disengaged from doing their entire assignment for them by shoving the pencil between his teeth and backing away.

Tucking the notebook back, suddenly aware he was, in fact, gnawing on his writing utensil, he tucked it behind his ear and used the motion as an excuse to adjust his spectacles before he picked up all of the various items he knew Madeleine would need for the assignment she'd been given. He rejoined her in time to watch her work through the questions in her mind before she actually chose to ask them—a trait he wished a few of her peers would take notice of.

"Ah, well. For gravity, I'd recommend along a singular plane—" Pointing at the sketches above figure 21—figures 13, 14, and 15—the professor drifted between 13 and 15 while he spoke, "—you have two options: you can either arrange them with different lengths and distances if you wish or you can use all the same lengths, but I would say if you'd rather work with only one property at a time, keeping things to a singular plane would make the most sense. That said, if you're looking to enjoy a bit of a higher difficulty," He pointed to figure 21,

"you could certainly seek to wrestle with both motion and mass instead."

Nauleth preferred not to be a hands-on professor unless the situation required it, learning early that those students who were meant to succeed were the ones who had their own momentum. Most of his students who relied on him to lead them instead of to simply show them the path were the ones who chose to ride the coattails of their predecessors throughout all of their adult lives.

"I won't begrudge you for challenging yourself, Miss Gosselin." He offered quietly, giving her permissions she hadn't asked for while he watched how her surface expression of uncertainty attempted to hold back deeper critical thinking that was eager to be allowed a moment of freedom on the Lawn.

"Yes, here. I can hold these a moment longer if you need to turn through some thoughts or ideas—or—I can just—right—I'm to act as your partner, though I won't be giving away any answers." The young Siordanti smirked, but his tone was much more merciless and professional than his words perhaps could have sounded out of context of a classroom setting. Madeleine did reach for a few, and he willingly passed over into her hands whatever she decided she'd want first, tilting his head toward the scorched earth at their feet in a way that accidentally slid his spectacles too far down his nose in an annoyingly comical fashion,

"We can certainly arrange things on the ground and go from there. Is your preference to work on more than just gravity? I can arrange some rods—how many?"
Welcome to Brunnhold. Now go home.
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Madeleine Gosselin
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Joined: Sun May 26, 2019 3:54 pm
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Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:57 am

Morning Class, 35th Yaris, 2718
Field of Practical Application
Madeleine looked down at the figures when Professor Siordanti pointed, studying the same three again. She looked between thirteen and fifteen, then down slowly to twenty one. She glanced up at the professor again, then looked back down at the sheet and frowned.

Madeleine wasn’t quite sure what to do. She wanted to try the centre of motion diagram; it looked terribly interesting to balance the balls across two planes, with strings of different length, and challenging too. She thought - but what if she couldn’t do it?

Tentatively, Madeleine’s eyes strayed back up to thirteen and fifteen. She swallowed, hard, and prepared herself to tell Professor Siordanti no, she thought she would do thirteen, perhaps. He spoke first, and Madeleine looked up at him, wide-eyed, and then back down at the diagram.

Madeleine seized her courage; she couldn’t do anything else, not after Professor Siordanti had said that. “I would like to try twenty one,” she said, looking up at him as if she had surprised herself, small face pinched tight with strain. She didn’t quite understand what he’d meant - she hadn’t asked for any answers, she hadn’t! - but Madeleine put it aside, already thinking through the problem.

Decisively, then, she reached for a few of the balls of varying sizes.

”Two rods, please, Professor,” Madeleine said, and took a deep breath.

Madeleine did work on the ground. She knelt, and she arranged the rods and the string that bound them, and that she would suspend the contraption from. Carefully, she took the balls from the Professor, weighing them in her hands with a little frown, examining them.

Madeleine set to work with a quick sketch then, drawing a rough version of the diagram. She didn’t know the exact weights and lengths of course, but she thought she could derive the ratios that would guide her without them. She knelt, and she sketched, and she wrote out the equations that she needed, carefully rearranging them into the proper shape.

”Thank you, Professor,” Madeleine said worriedly. Professor Siordanti had helped her rig the balls in the wire. She connected them to the rods, carefully, balancing the four sides against one another, eyes darting back and forth. She needed to balance not only the halves of the rods against each other, but the four quadrants of the contraption all together, so that it wouldn’t tilt one way or another.

Madeleine’s hair had come largely out of its braid by the time she was done; wisps floated around her face, and larger strands hung awkwardly here and there. She didn’t seem to notice; she was entirely focused on the contraption. She had tested bits and pieces here and there, the two sides against one another in a few different arrangements. Some had worked, others not, and she had made careful notes, when she needed them.

And then - and then - finally - Madeleine thought she might be ready.

Carefully - carefully, her hands skimming over all the pieces - Madeleine made a final check. She bit her lip, and lifted it from the center wire, slowly, the rods rising carefully off the ground. They wobbled unsteadily, back and forth, and Madeleine held her hand as still as she could manage, watching it wide eyed.

One rod wobbled, up and down, the balls jiggling unevenly with it. Madeleine sucked in a nervous breath, and sent a quick prayer to the gods; she wasn’t quite sure who to ask, so she went with the Circle as a whole, to be safe. The rod steadied - steadied - and the contraption hung from her hand, both rods parallel to the ground.

“Oh,” Madeleine whispered, softly, her eyes bright and her face glowing. She smiled, slowly, and then wider, and she sat back, and held it steadily off the ground, and smiled wider.

“Is it -“ she looked up at Professor Siordanti; her brow furrowed, and there was a pinched, nervous look to her face once more. Her shoulders hunched faintly, and she glanced down, then back up at him, uncertain. “Is it sufficient, Professor?” Madeleine asked, worriedly, looking back down at the model. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if it was quite parallel enough - if it should be swaying less - if she had made a mistake, somewhere. A faint tinge of yellow-hued anxiety rippled through her field, scattering the crisp, indectal feeling she had maintained so briefly.

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Nauleth Siordanti
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Joined: Sun Apr 01, 2018 12:19 am
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Location: Brunnhold, Anaxas
: Magus in the Making
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Wed Jan 08, 2020 2:32 pm

35th of Yaris, 2718
FIELD of PRACTICAL APPLICATION | MORNING CLASS

"Well, I'm clo—certainly not here to stop you." He caught himself—was always catching himself—tucking away informal speaking far from his speech as best he could, aware that his position as educator was not the same as his time spent among his peers in the late hours after too much research. Not that he hadn't ever been a student and not that he wasn't aware how children spoke to each other, but. Still.

He was an example. Or something.

But was he really?

The professor chose not to pursue that thought process, instead choosing to remind himself that he was currently mostly present to stand and hold things, to cast his long shadow in the Yaris heat across the Lawn he'd spent so much time on not so long ago. He did so with no small amount of distraction, however, glancing around the small patch of spell-scorched earth his class had claimed as their own, watching the other students gather their things and plan out their assignments, feeling the barely cool trickle of sweat travel familiar pathways between his shoulder blades beneath his clothes.

Nauleth made eye contact with a few of his young charges—not by mistake, of course—confirming their unspoken requests for items or permission, reading their expressions to see if they truly needed his assistance more than they really wanted his presence for assurance. A few spoke up from their various plots, and he answered them, forced to turn his blinking attention back to Miss Gosselin when she requested two rods.

Handing them over with the flash of a smile, he set a few other things down carefully, keeping the comfortable weight of one of the spheres in his right hand,

"One moment. Carry on, though." The redheaded professor slipped away to correct a pair of students who had spent the past several minutes bickering instead of actually collaborating, the garish shifts in their fields finally too bright for him to continue to tolerate. He spoke quietly, no anger in his tone that he'd once been so infamous for out here among his peers. While he certainly didn't work out their assignment for them, he wiped his forehead with the back of his free hand and listed several paths their solution could take, eventually finding one the two boys seemed able to agree on.

The eldest Siordanti passed by almost all of the small groups, pointing out blatant errors, requesting a repeat of the assignment, complimenting clever work. He was finally tugged away by his quietest student, a Mugrobi young woman, where he examined the work of her and her partner. They were so close, almost ready to make similar attempts with magic, and he stood and looked over the pulley system they'd created, saying nothing for several moments, wanting to see if either of them figured out his reason for silence.

"Oh!" The amber-eyed girl gasped, elbowing her friend who giggled her apologies, immediately adjusting some of the tension in the wires by tightening her knot.

"Yes, good work. Think about how to achieve the same lift in Physical conversation and I'll be back shortly."

Turning back toward Madeleine, he almost gingerly stepped past another pair of students in the hopes they did not need him, sliding both hands into his pockets and feeling the weight of one of the spheres tug that side—his left side—heavily.

Gods, why did he think outdoor classwork in Yaris was a good idea? Oh, right. The classroom was a clocking oven.

Miss Gosselin raised her work carefully, slowly, and with that expression of wide-eyed concentration that made teaching a rewarding profession at the end of the day. Naul watched it wobble, the thick gravity of his field dampening, curling closer to the lean figure he cut in dark professors robes, gold-rimmed gaze watching each individual sphere find its equilibrium from behind his spectacles. Perhaps he was calculating it all in the process, lips slightly parted in thought, eyes drifting to the rods before finally resettling on Madeleine's face,

"There. I believe you have succeeded more than sufficiently, yes." He offered warmly, ignoring the typical yellow hue of the girl's worrying nature that washed over his magical senses, "Building such things out of doors is hardly a matter of precision. Grading here is more weighted toward thought process. Now, can you think of spell references to recreate this balancing act and how you might put them together? I don't think you'll have to reach too far back into history—there are some contemporary spell writers we have recently studied that should come to mind, don't you think?"
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Madeleine Gosselin
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Wed Jan 08, 2020 5:30 pm

Morning Class, 35th Yaris, 2718
Field of Practical Application
More than sufficiently, Professor Siordanti said. Madeleine’s eyes widened, and she looked down at the model dangling from her hand. Her face brightened, slowly, into a smile, and she looked back up at Professor Siordanti with a brighter smile. The yellow-tinge faded from her field.

Then he kept talking. Madeleine wasn’t sure what everything Professor Siordanti said meant, not exactly. Madeleine thought maybe he was saying that she hadn’t really done a good job, but that it was all right because they were outside? She looked back down at the model again, her shoulders sinking a little. It was wobbling again, Madeleine couldn’t help but notice. Her gaze lowered further, and, carefully, gingerly, she set the model down on the dry, crackling grass.

She looked back up at Professor Siordanti as he kept instructing her. He asked her for spell references, and Madeleine nodded, slowly, frowning again. Contemporary spell writers they had studied recently.

Madeleine’s gaze dropped to the model. She swallowed, hard. She was sweaty, she realized; sweaty and uncomfortable. Tentatively, Madeleine reached up to touch her hair; there were bits sticking to her forehead, and to her neck. Her uniform felt awful, gross and sticky, and she thought maybe it was sticking to her legs too. She hadn’t even noticed while she was working; she’d been too busy for it. Now, suddenly –

Madeleine took a deep breath, peeking up at Professor Siordanti. “Yes Professor,” she said, nervously, obediently. Madeleine’s gaze lowered again, and she frowned once more. The assignment had called for a levitation spell. It would be tricky, Madeleine thought, frowning slightly. If she suspended levitation only around one rod, or even around both, she would pull the balls out of alignment as well; she didn’t know any levitation spells so precisely targeted that she could just suspend one or the other.

Carefully, Madeleine lifted her mobile up again, watching it dangle. She could just suspend gravity around the whole thing, Madeleine supposed, but that didn’t seem quite right.

One of the spells they had studied was for partial gravity suspension, Madeleine remembered. It was a bit tricky, but it allowed you to suspend – to weaken – gravity for only part of an object, lifting it up off the ground entirely. Madeleine studied the mobile, frowning. If she did only the spot where the rods intersected, she thought maybe the pull would be strong enough.

Madeleine glanced up at Professor Siordanti again. She hesitated, shifting. She thought – did he want her to ask him first? Madeleine glanced back down at the contraption she’d made. She had the uncomfortable feeling that she was nagging him, and he’d said – he’d said! – that he wasn’t there to give her the answers.

Worry fluttered through her field, and roiled in her stomach. Madeleine took a deep, careful breath. She remembered the spell they’d learned; she’d copied it out, like she did all their new spells, as many times as it took for the monite to stay with her. She wasn’t sure she knew how to pronounce all of the words; she hadn’t tried it. And there was a tempering process based on the materials – Madeleine wasn’t sure if she remembered all the details.

Madeleine peeked up at Professor Siordanti again. If she asked, would he think she wanted all the answers? The middle Gosselin set her contraption back down on the ground again, carefully, still kneeling close to it, bits of grass clinging to her long skirt.

Madeleine took a deep breath, and began to cast, carefully. The monite was strange in her mouth; her voice quavered, more than once, and she lost track of herself briefly around the tempering, trying a few tentative words to describe the materials she wanted, the span in which she wished gravity suspended. It was almost like creating a little bubble at the center of the two rods, a little place where the rules of the world didn’t apply.

Madeleine was trembling, but her field was etheric around her. Slowly, slowly, the contraption began to lift; Madeleine almost lost her place in surprise – she hadn’t really expected it to work – and her voice caught briefly, but she kept casting, steadily and carefully. She curled the spell, and held her breath through the upkeep.

For a moment, one glorious moment, it was working. For a moment, one wonderful moment, Madeleine felt a surge of happiness, a rush –

And then both rods cracked, bowing under the strain of the spell. The contraption came apart, and the pieces tumbled to the ground, the balls bouncing and rolling about.

Madeleine cried out, losing whatever little remained of her upkeep. She crouched, wide-eyed, tears glittering in the corners of her eyes, and she couldn’t bring herself to look up at Professor Siordanti. Her breath caught, and she tried to tell herself not to cry, wiping her eyes on her sleeve and sniffling, her lower lip trembling.

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Partial levitation spell: SidekickBOTToday at 2:12 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (2) = 2
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Nauleth Siordanti
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: Magus in the Making
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Mon Jan 27, 2020 10:14 pm

35th of Yaris, 2718
FIELD of PRACTICAL APPLICATION | MORNING CLASS

It had not been a trick question. Nauleth did not consider himself crafty when it came to classroom mechanics‚ even if he sometimes fancied himself crafty in a duel or on the field as a sorcerer, whether or not it was true of course. This moment was not a moment for catching any of his students off-guard so much as being vigilant for an opportunity to teach a good lesson.

The young Miss Gosselin had a look on her face as if she doubted his sincere interest in her future. She was a nervous creature from what he could tell thus far this class year, but a sharp one when she didn't let her worrying get in the way of her thought process. She'd built a very decent model—far better alone without any assistance than a few of the other groups' attempts at solving their own simple machine problems—and as it wobbled there, both professor and student watched curiously as Madeleine delicately, carefully, oh so carefully, set her suspended spheres onto the dry, scorched grass.

Looking down made the eldest Siordanti acutely aware of how Brunnhold dress code standards for professors were hardly amicable to the Yaris weather. He kept the frown of displeasure from his freckled features with well-practiced ease, watching the young woman consider his suggestion for where to find inspiration for her spellwork, watching her work through the various options to reach the same goal.

There were many, and although he would have happily given her a few examples had she asked him, there was some flicker of uncertainty in her expression that gnawed at him—had he been to harsh? Had he misdirected her already? Naul was aware of his difficulties in being personable, and the irony of him shaping young lives roughly around the age when he'd nearly ruined his own was not lost on him at all, not any day of the week. That awareness nagged at him, tingled the endings of his nerves as if he was standing too close to Living magic being cast, as if he was having a sensitive day with all that had been damaged in his backlash.

He was never quite confident in his abilities to reach out to students and lead them because he was aware of how abstract and harsh the landscape of his own thoughts often could become.

Still, he smiled as Miss Gosselin began to gather her field, the girl drawing in the physical mona that drifted between them, that clung to even his own field, that weighed down the very air of this area of the Field of Practical Application while his class of aspiring physical sorcerers did their studies beneath the bright sun. He arched a ginger brow—the right one; the left one was clearly incapable of reaching such a sharp expression—and listened with no disguised critical ear to her intonation, her Monite, and the direction she chose with her spell.

Following along, Professor Siordanti might have even nodded, subtle, accidental, but honest, gold-rimmed gaze watching expectantly as the little construct began to lift from the ground, slowly, the mona moving in obedience to her request and changing the very weight of gravity there near two of the rods. It was quick thinking on her part, though perhaps in her enthusiasm, she'd put a bit too much emphasis on the force suspended by her spell. He heard it there, in the inflection, but understood that casting was a process best learned through trial and error. He did not open his mouth to interrupt nor correct Madeleine.

Naul watched the project rise, felt the rush of excitement in the young student's etheric field as much as saw it in her expression, but he also felt the pressure, the subtle shift in gravity perhaps just a little too harsh, just a little too sharp like a sour aftertaste in the back of his mouth—

Ah. There it was.

The rods bowed under the strain and everything did exactly as was expected in a physics experiment: it all fell to the ground.

Oh, but—

Miss Gosselin shouted in surprise—more a whimper, really—and the taller redhead felt the dropping of her concentration almost as much as he thought he could literally feel the welling of tears in the girl's eyes. For a heartbeat, his attention flicked away, toward his other students, praying to the entire Circle that someone might need his assistance, but no. Of course not.

No. Oh. No, surely she wasn't going to cry.

Her lip trembled.

She sniffled.

Not another youth called Professor Siordanti on queue.

Godsdamnit.

Naul forced his smile into some well-rehearsed semblance of a warmer expression in defiance of the Yaris heat, though it was the right side that fell into such a gentle place a second before the left. He forced his tone of voice into something more gentle than usual, and—finally—he mustered the professionalism to offer quietly,

"Well! Wasn't that exciting? What an excellent choice of spells, Miss Gosselin. Oh, now, don't look at me that way—I mean it—it was a very efficient choice. Instead of lifting all of the individual pieces, you went for the support rods and you even chose the correct points. Now, there's no reason to be upset, however, as all good science is built on far more failure than success. Wait—no—you didn't fail. Just, sometimes we learn just as much from things going our way as we learn from things going ... another way entirely. Really, things not going according to plan is probably literally the backbone of academic progress, if you ask me, and this was a fine success even if you didn't expect, uh, this."

He bent into a squat and reached to arrange everything close together again into a somewhat similar arrangement to what Madeleine had built, still smiling, reminding himself that she was still a lower form student,

"Would you like to try anything again? Or, perhaps a better question is, do you have any thoughts about what you could try differently? Because, again, you did good work, Miss Gosselin."
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Madeleine Gosselin
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Tue Jan 28, 2020 1:21 pm

Morning Class, 35th Yaris, 2718
Field of Practical Application
Madeleine didn’t want to cry; she wanted not to cry more than she had ever wanted anything in her whole entire life. She knelt on the ground, staring down at the broken pieces of the model she had worked so hard on. There was still an odd, faintly strained feeling that she couldn’t identify in the air; she didn’t know what the mona were trying to tell her. There was a telltale, warning heat behind her eyes, hot and uncomfortable, and an ache in her chest, right in the middle, nauseating and awful.

Madeleine sniffled; she couldn’t help but sniffle. There was a wet feeling in the corner of her eyes. If she rubbed them, everyone would know that she was a crybaby. She hadn’t cried in class, not really, in at least a year. She didn’t want to do it again; she didn’t want to cry right in front of Professor Siordanti, not after she had just embarrassed herself with her awful, miserable failure of a spell.

Madeleine’s breath hitched in her chest. She stared down at the bits of wire and string and the uneven balls, splayed slightly apart on the dry, cracked grass. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, and then blinked rapidly instead. Neither worked very well.

Professor Siordanti’s voice was very nice. Madeleine hadn’t wanted to look at him, but her head snapped up when he continued, her eyes wide, and she sniffled, audibly, a look of visible confusion on her face at the compliment to her spell.

Madeleine didn’t know what to make of what he was saying. He didn’t seem to know either, she thought, miserably. She flinched at the word failure; her shoulders tensed, and she hunched down a little between them, curling into herself, looking back down at the mess her spell had left on the ground.

Professor Siordanti crouched down next to her, and set about rearranging the pieces. Madeleine stared wide-eyed at him, and then looked down at the model. She was still crouching as well, curled in on herself, her shoulders by her ears, her chin ducked into her chest. Professor Siordanti asked if she wanted to try again, and Madeleine shook her head, lower lip trembling, and looked down again.

He asked if she had any ideas about what she could have done differently. Madeleine stared down at the model. She could have done it better, she thought, miserable. If she had done it better then she wouldn’t be here, trying not to cry on the dry grass. If she had done it better, then she wouldn’t have broken the model.

Madeleine didn’t even quite know where the spell had gone wrong. She knew she hadn’t managed the tempering correctly; she knew she had forgotten how exactly to account for the material. She knew she had lost her place for a moment in the middle of it. But she could have done so many different things wrong, and she didn’t know which of them - why the mona hadn’t done what she wanted. Or was it only that they didn’t like her? Madeleine thought that would make sense; no one else seemed to, so why should they?

If she told Professor Siordanti all the things she had done wrong, Madeleine thought, she would definitely cry. She really didn’t want to cry, or at least not here on the Field of Practical Applications, in front of everyone. She had already messed up her spell, when anyone in the whole class could have been watching. Crying would just be too much. It wasn’t fair, Madeleine thought, feeling a burning ache of misery in her chest. Why couldn’t she do anything right?

“No, Professor,” Madeleine whispered, miserably. “May I be excused?” She asked. “I have to -“ Madeleine’s gaze flickered up at him as she tried to think of what to say. It was a mistake, and to her horror she could feel moisture gathering in her eyes. She tried to wipe her face on her sleeve, quickly and surreptitiously, and hoped he didn’t see. “I have to go,” Madeleine tried, weakly, her lower lip trembling all the more.

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